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Poll Finds IT/Business Alignment Still Top Priority
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| Written by Mel Duvall |
The recession is clearly having a major impact on organizations, but that still doesn’t appear to have taken the focus away from a traditional IT priority: IT/Business Alignment.
During the month of January, CIOZone conducted a poll on the Top Technology Priorities of 2009. With the economy clearly in trouble, we wondered whether priorities would be shifted away from traditional areas such as IT alignment and ERP projects and towards cost cutting efforts.
Clearly, CIOs are under pressure with 11.5% of respondents saying Trimming the Budget was their top priority. That was tied for second overall. But comfortably out in front with 19.2% of the vote was the traditionally strong requirement to focus on IT/Business Alignment. Even in a downturn, most CIOs recognize that making sure IT’s efforts are aligned with the goals of the business has to be the top priority.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in our poll was the strength of the need to develop mobile applications. It came in tied for second with trimming the budget. At CIOZone, we’ve been hearing a lot about companies ramping up their mobile application development efforts. Obviously, more people are using smartphones with Web browsing capabilities and our poll seems to reflect the need for businesses to reach out to customers, partners and staff using the devices.
Our poll received a total of 104 votes. Here are the results in descending priority with voting percentages.
1. IT/Business Alignment – 19.2%
2. Mobile Applications – 11.5%
Trimming the Budget – 11.5%
3. Business Development – 11%
4. Outsourcing – 9.6%
5. ERP/CRM/SCM – 8.7%
Green IT – 8.7%
Implementing hosted services (SaaS) – 8.7%
6. Cloud Computing – 5.8%
Web 2.0 apps (for the business) – 5.8%
In the month of February CIOZone is conducting another poll on What is the biggest threat to your company’s computer and information security?
The driver behind the new poll is a rash of news in recent weeks on data breaches at major corporations. Heartland Payment Systems disclosed that it suffered a security breach that could potentially expose millions of credit and debit cards to fraud. It was also reported this week that a disgruntled Fannie Mae programmer was charged with attempting to plant a virus designed to destroy all the data on 4,000 computer servers the day after he was fired from the company.
The latest headlines come on top of a report issued by the Identity Theft Resource Center which found 2008 was the worst year yet for reported breaches.
Clearly, security efforts need to be stepped up this year to not only restore public trust, but also protect corporate information assets against inside and outside threats. But what is the top priority? Take our poll, located on the right hand column of our home page and share your thoughts.
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